Cambridge, Ohio

Shenandoah Dirigible Wreck

September 4, 1925

15 DEAD IN BLIMP DISASTER

LIGHTENING FLASH, TERRIFIC STORM; SHENANDOAH WAGES LOSING BATTLE WITH ELEMENTS

Giant Dirigible Struggles Vainly – Control Car Lost, Ship Soars Through Clouds, Splits, Falls

(By J. R. MacSwords)

A flash of lightning!
A tornado sweeping all before it!
A great dirigible, the Shenandoah, fighting valiantly, against a 45-milk gale.
The flickering of lights. Utter darkness! Trembling lights again!
The motors of the huge blimp helpless against the powerful storm. Men asleep, rudely awakened by the pitching and tossing of the huge airship.
A hurried assembling of all the crew and passengers. But continued order. Men observing instruments minutely. Motors speeded up in an effort to beat the storm.
Control Car Lost
Ship Soars to Clouds
Power of elements increasing, making the efforts of mere man, even though valiant, seem puny.
Shenandoah flying about 2,100 feet high. Loss of the control car. Sudden leap of the mighty blimp to an elevation of approximately 7,000 feet elevation.
A pitching and tossing! Men flung from their feet!
Another dip and a screaming crash!
Shenandoah breaks into two huge pieces!
Nose of ship carried south with great velocity. Eight men expecting instant death! Tail of blimp nose-dives toward earth! An upward air current. Soars hundreds of feet.
Sinks again, always with great velocity!
Sweeps over ground knocking off cabins, engine rooms and other compartments! Fourteen men dead. Bodies mangled and torn.
Roll call – one man missing. Body not found until 10:30 a. m.

Sun Shines Brightly On Scene of Tragic Desolation
Storm subsides and sun shines brightly on scene of tragedy and desolation.
The Shenandoah had been sailing peacefully along on its western trip. It was not the first time that the giant dirigible had glimpsed Ohio. But it was the last.
No indication of the approaching storm or of its ferocity had reached the 43 men who were entrusting their lives to the stability of this Queen of the Air. Some were sleeping, for the motion of motion of the ship was gentle.

Ship and Storm Meet
The Shenandoah and the storm met just east of Cambridge about 3 a. m. Man matched strength with Nature and was found wanting. The powerful motors of the dirigible were futile against the mighty thrust of the gale.

The throttles advanced. The storm increased in velocity. The Shenandoah was forced into retreating fighting every inch. One mile – two miles – five – ten – twenty – thirty miles the airship was driven back! Disaster awaited.

About 5:40 a. m. the wind beat the Shenandoah to a point over the hills about three miles east of Ava. Here the control car of the ship was met. Without power to hold a course, the dirigible started its crazy flight vehicle ended five minutes later when the Shenandoah split into two huge pieces.

The Times Recorder, Zanesville OH 4 Sept 1925

SHENANDOAH FALLS AMONG HILLS AFTER FIGHT WITH STORM

Fourteen men lost their lives and two were injured when the huge naval dirigible, the Shenandoah, crashed to the earth 25 miles southeast of Zanesville, Thursday.
The great bag fell in three masses of twisted and broken wreckage. An area of nine miles intervened between the point of descent of the first and last sections
The bow section carrying seven men and Lieutenant Commander C. E. Rosendahl, was maneuvered safely to land without loss of life in its forward cabin.

13 Dashed to Death When Cabin Breaks From Moorings
Thirteen were dashed to death as the control cabin broke from its mooring and fell 3,000 feet onto a rocky hill. The cabin was a mass of tangled wreckage.

The body of one victim, caught in the sharp metal, was cut almost in half. Lieutenant Commander Zachary Lansdowns, flight chief, died as the cabin fell, his body horribly mutilated.

For 24 hours the huge dirigible had fought a stern gale and seemed to have won. [Illegible] harlsingers [sic] of dawn betokened the coming of sunshine and fair weather as the ship nose over Ava, O.

Then an air current, and the fragile struts of the great skeleton gave way. The bag buckled in the middle and the stern section shot toward the ground.

It was then that the main cabin broke away and fell. The forward power plant also left its moorings a few seconds before the doomed bag crashed against the wooded hillside.

Saving Lives of Seven in Bow Section Like Tale From Fiction
The descent of the bow section entailed a feat of aerial maneuvering that reads like fiction. Commander Rosendahl stood by the water tanks, releasing water ballast in synchronization with the movements of two of his men at the gas valves.
Once they crashed to ground.

“I wanted to jump then,” Rosendahl admitted, “but I had the men with me. I couldn’t. Thank God I didn’t.”

The broken bit of bag, moving like a free balloon, leaped back into the air, descended again and then rose again before Rosendahl bright it down three miles from Caldwell and nine miles from the other sections.

Tells of Crash
“It was so sudden – such a crash and binding flash”, Commander Rosendahl said, “I was dazed, but when I found there were others there with me, I felt better, I at least felt like a fight – and here we are.”

Rosendahl was quietly shaving as he made the statement. The news of the others deaths had reached him. He made no comment other than to shake his head slowly and rub his eyes.

The bodies of the 14 dead were taken, under Rosendahl’s direction, to the C. A. Dye undertaking company morgue at Belle Center. For hours a constant string of improvised ambulances carried the dead to the rough wooden building pressed into service for the emergency.

The main section of the ship carrying 26 survivors, landed with a crash which sent several of the crew diving through the outer covering to the ground. A middle section of some 15 or 20 feet settled down in pieces over the countryside.

The Time Recorder, Zanesville, OH 4 Sept 1925

THE DEAD

Lieutenant Commander LOUIS HANCOCK, JR., of Austin, Texas, executive officer.
Lieut. J. B. LAWRENCE, St. Paul, Minn.
Lieut. A. R. HOUGHTON, Alston, Mass.
C. P. O., E. B. SCHNITZER, Tuckertown, N. J.
M. M., JAMES MOORE, Savannah, Ga.
Chief Rigger, E. H. ALLEN, St. Louis, Mo.
Lieut. E. W. SHEPPARD, Washington D. C.
Rigger R. T. JOFFRAY, St. Louis, Mo.
M. M., B. B. O’SULLIVAN, Lowell, Mass.
M. M., W. A. Spratley, Venice, Ill.
Machinist Charles Broom, Tom’s River, N. J.
M. M., C. P. Mazzucco, Murray Hill, N. J.
M. M., James W. Culinan, Binghampton, N. Y.

THE INJURED
Chief Gunner Raymond Cole, Lima, Ohio, cut and bruised, thought not to be fatally injured.
Rigger John F. McCarthy, Freehold, N. J., suffering from serious injuries and cuts. He may die.

The Times Recorder, Zanesville, OH 4 Sept 1925

Survivors Tell Feelings As Disaster Overtook Blimp

Survivors of the Shenandoah disaster, able to collect their thoughts after their experience, told the following brief stories:

J. E. Mallick, Hooversville, Ps.: “I didn’t have any time for sensations. I was inside the ship when I felt her lurch and before I knew it she hit.”

J. J. Hahn, Philadelphia: “I was inside and I looked out the windows when she reeled. All I could see was the trees rushing up at me and I thought it was all over. I fell out when she hit the trees and I figure. I’m right lucky.

L. E. Allegry, Logan, O.: “Well I was in there and now I’m out and the think I’m thinking about now is a day or so of leave to go home and see the folks.” He was granted a leave by the commander and left for his home with his brother-in-law who arrived in Caldwell shortly after the survivors were brought to that city.

J. Cole, Philadelphia: “I had just got out of my berth and gone forward when I felt the upward lift of the bag. I heard the noise of the twisting framework as the ship buckled. As the center of the bag dropped I slid down a rope ladder. Burned my hands, but laded safely.”

Ralph Jones, Los Angeles: “I felt that all was not well when I climbed out of my berth and noticed the pitching of the ship. I felt I would be safer to climb on top of the cabin and I jumped off when the car hit the ground.”

Lieut. C. E. Bauch, Dorcester, Mass.: “I didn’t have any sensations and I didn’t think.”

F. E. Masters, Akron, O.: “I felt it was all over. I don’t remember what I did after I realized things were going bad with us.”

Frank Peckham, Freestone, Md.: “I felt her reel and lift and wondered how soon the big bump would come. I’m glad I’m here.”

The Times Recorder, Zanesville, OH 4 Sept 1925

Transcribed by Jenni Lanham.  Thank you, Jenni!

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